


Manic Pixie Dream Girl

by LilyBelle1923



Series: Manic Pixie Dream Girl [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Adulthood, Awkward Romance, College, Friendship, Gen, Multi, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, POV Third Person, Realistic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 11:22:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13433691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyBelle1923/pseuds/LilyBelle1923
Summary: In a life after college, free-spirited Harry struggles to figure out her place in the adult world. She didn't realize how hard it would be to leave behind her life of fun and freedom for one of professionalism. Will she find passion in the realm of professional artistry, or will she give up on adulthood and continue to draw smutty fanart for the remainder of her existence?





	Manic Pixie Dream Girl

How many glasses of champagne do you think it would take for a young adult female of 170 pounds to black out? Keen on finding out for herself, Harry conducted this experiment in the safety of the downstairs bathroom. She clutched the bottle of bubbly to her chest, nestling the neck between her boobs, as she chugged glass number two. So far, she only felt slightly inebriated. _Curse my Irish heritage for giving me such a high constitution!_

Knock. Knock.  

Harry had tried to forget that she wasn’t the only person in her home. The party in her honor raged upstairs – as hard as a party populated by snobby white people could rage. Reluctantly, Harry stood up from her perch on the vanity’s counter to open the door. She breathed a sigh of relief to see her best friend, Deisy, standing in the hallway with two family-sized bags of honey-butter Doritos in her arms. “I see you rolled a nat twenty for wallowing in anxiety.”

“More like a seventeen.” Harry moved to the side so that Deisy could come in. They sat beside each other on the floor. “I’m not doing it very well.” Harry examined the empty champagne flute in her hand with purple lipstick around the rim in a perfect stamp of her bottom lip. She hoped that she would be drunk enough to see two glasses or at least one blurry glass. She frowned at the clear glass and set it down.

“What are you doing in here, Harry?”

“Like you said,” she ripped open one of the bags, instantly filling the small room with the scent of honey-butter and tortilla. “Wallowing in a fathomless pool of anxiety.”

“I get that, but why the anxiety? You don’t usually poop out on big parties when your name is in lights. Literally. Your parents know I only said that as a joke, right?”

“I don’t know, Dee. I just don’t feel right…” Harry trailed off.

“What do you mean? You seemed fine this morning.”

“I’m lost, I guess.”

“Lost how?”

“Lost in my art… Lost in my future. Nothing inspires me the way it inspires my mom and dad to paint, or the way it inspires you to write. I feel like I'm drifting away from myself and I don't know how to swim back. I can't cross this threshold. The other side holds nothing for me… When we walk across that stage tomorrow, once I have that piece of paper in my hand, I've entered the void of true adulthood."

Deisy gently pushed her friend. “You’ve been dramatic since the day I met you,” she said with a soft laugh.

“If I wasn’t dramatic, I would be a much more boring person.”

“Impossible.”

The two young women sat on the floor of the bathroom until they finished off one of the Dorito bags and half the bottle of champagne. Deisy shoved the empty bag into a small trashcan under the sink. Her lacey underwear showed beneath her tight dress as she bent over. Normally Harry wouldn’t objectify her best friend, but sometimes the booty was just too good not to admire. She was also thoroughly tipsy by this time, a state in which Harry found it difficult not to enjoy the view. She quickly snapped out of her reverie when someone knocked on the door.

“Harriet? Honey, are you in there? You disappeared.” It was Harry’s mom.

“She’s having an existential crisis, Mrs. Lamphere,” Deisy called.

“Deisy? Harriet, baby, we’re about to serve dinner. We need you upstairs.”

“I’ll have her out in a jiffy, second momma.”

After a moment’s hesitation, they could hear Jackie Lamphere’s heels clacking against the floor as she returned to the party. Harry didn’t cry, though she really wished she could. All she could do was stare at Deisy with a look of disdain. Deisy returned the look with a slap to her best friend’s bare leg.

“Up and at ‘em, bucko. I hate those stuck up buttheads just as much as you do.” She held her hand out. “I’ll hold your hand the whole time if you need me to.”

 

Harry cringed at every question thrown her way by the middle-aged socialites of Ventura, California.

“What are you going to do after this?”

“You got something planned yet, kiddo?”

“Have you applied for a graduate program yet?”

The answer to all of them was the same. “I don’t know yet” was said in so many variations that Harry decided her mutant super power must be to be forever indecisive.

The evening dragged on like the decrepit man from down the street taking the whole morning to get down to his driveway for the paper. Harry’s parents made toasts to congratulate her successful tumble through college. More people she barely recognized approached her with “I haven’t seen you since you were this big!” and a gesture to show that she used to be shorter than she is.

It was another two hours before the last stragglers of the night finally made their drunken way toward the front door. Harry’s father had to basically carry them out to their respective taxis.

It was almost midnight. Harry lay in bed beside Deisy. Their clothes for the next day were laid out meticulously as if the people wearing them had evaporated, leaving a hint of what their shape used to be. They spent the remainder of their waking moments sifting through pictures on Pinterest and Instagram for inspirational make up or hair ideas.

Deisy finally conceded, “Why am I even looking at pictures? I’m just going to do what I always do with my make up and I’ll curl my hair. That’s as fancy as I get for those bozos.” With that, she turned over and fell asleep almost instantly.

Harry tried to follow suit, but her nerves got the best of her. She lay in bed, for what felt like, hours, staring into the ceiling hoping that some magical being would materialize and whisk her away on an adventure somewhere else. Tomorrow would be the end of her world as she knew it. The door was closing on young and crazy Harry, and was opening for an adult and responsible Harriet. The door was caught, though, and couldn’t open all the way. She felt stuck between the two worlds. She clung to herself as she was at that moment. Carefree, adventurous. She had seen what responsibility had done to her parents. They didn’t paint anymore. Not for themselves, anyway. They painted for the money, and Harry could see it destroying the spirits within them. She wanted to keep her spirit as intact as possible. But how?

**Author's Note:**

> This is a passion-project, so I am thankful to all who read this first segment of my brain baby!


End file.
